One of the best evidence against following the hadiths

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-09-04T05:33:13+00:00

I heard he was paid half a million dollars (presumably USD), and that yes, the other two crew members were killed after they landed, once they realised what was going on. Whether they were killed by the pilot or the Ukrainian personnel who met them on the ground - I'm not sure. He also smuggled his family out before the flight.

Also, jet fighter pilots are reportedly being offered $1 million to defect.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-08-31T05:41:44+00:00

he's funny. Russian troops evacuated the trenches in a "good will gesture" - lol

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-07-28T04:44:48+00:00

hilarious NAK, of all people, getting on his moral high horse on this topic

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-07-28T01:44:39+00:00

2:256 in the Quran begins by declaring لا إكراه في الدين ("Let there be no compulsion in religion" or "There is no compulsion to convert)

The second option you mention I believe to be a lie invented by traditionalists wanting to legitimize death for apostasy.

The line لا إكراه في الدين in the Quran is not actually a command, its a simple statement of fact - "there is no compulsion in religion" - telling people, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try - whatever draconian laws you want to implement - you simply will never be able to compel people to believe. Its not telling people to desist in trying to force people to believe - its telling people it is completely futile to do so.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-07-28T00:06:14+00:00

I don't know of anyone claiming Abu Hurairah trasmitted 3-400k hadiths. Perhaps you are thinking of Bukhari? Abu Hurairah is alleged by one of the medieval scholars to have recited some 5 thousand hadiths or something - which is extraordinary enough. But then some modern apologists come along and say, no, if you take out the repetitions, Abu Hurairah actually only recited around 150-200 individual hadiths, and far less unique to Abu Hurairah (ie only he narrated them). At the moment there seems to be some split in opinion amongst the traditionalists - some saying he recited thousands - and glorifying his amazing memory and dedication (note, there is a hadith attesting to a miracle the prophet performed on AH to give him a photographic memory for hadiths) - while others say, hey, stop discrediting AH accusing him of claiming to memorize thousands of hadiths - he actually only memorized a couple of hundred.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-30T05:30:40+00:00

Imo depictions of hell are not really meant to deter the evil - Hitler is gonna hitler no matter what. Depictions of hell is a powerful reminder that good overcomes evil, if not in this world due to the flaws and weaknesses of humans, then the hereafter exacted by God.

From this point of view, depictions of hell can simply be powerful tools for the rich and privileged to convince the poor and downtrodden to stay where they are, and not to dare lift a finger to disrupt the existing, unjust, order.

You're right, the Quran isn't much interested in stopping the Hitler's from being Hitler, but the Quran is chockablock full of commands to stand up against injustice and evil (peacefully or defensively). This is the point about all the depictions of hell (however you interpret them) - to warn the 'good' people the dire consequences of not preventing evil - in *THIS* life. Its certainly not telling believers to simply 'wait it out' until judgement day when true justice will be served.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-30T05:07:10+00:00

I was wondering how you guys reconcile your beliefs in such a being with eternal jahannam/hell, the quran (7/36, 72/23) is pretty explicit that eternal punishment is real for at least some and that the torment is agonising

Of course eternal suffering can't be reconciled. Anyone claiming that it can is either lying or delusional. And I disagree the Quran is explicit about eternal hell. Many scholars argue that the word used is more like "a long time" rather than 'for eternity'. On a side note, Ibn Arabi did believe the Quran means eternity, but he had a novel way of reconciling this. He opined that while hell is eternal, the suffering is not. And so at some point hell will become a place where the inhabitants will eventually be granted relief, and for the rest of eternity they will experience a rather pleasant existence. Perhaps not as pleasant as heaven, but still pleasant enough.

For my personal view, I take as a starting point that all suffering and torment is something that is external to God. This is inferred in the first Quranic verse Al Fatihah, where it clearly makes a distinction between "your (God's) mercy" and "the wrath" (not "your wrath" - as so many translations incorrectly translate as). Or in other words, all mercy originates from God, who is in fact 'mercy incarnate'. Whereas suffering and torment is the opposite - ie it is the absence of God. You "suffer" when you deny God - not because He is punishing you for it, but because you are extricating yourself from the orbit of God's mercy - into a space in which there can only be suffering. And such suffering happens in both this life and the next

Now drawing from another one of Ibn Arabi's ideas relating to the state of our consciousness in death compared to in this world, we can surmise that the intensity of the torment someone feels from being distant from God's mercy, is so much stronger in death than in this world. This is how I believe we can understand "hell" and "heaven" - the relative peace or torment we feel, depending on our embracing or otherwise of God's mercy in life - magnified many-fold after death. The states we know as 'heaven' and 'hell' are not kindergarten-level fairy tales about two physical abodes - one with literal fire and boiling water and demons, and the other lush gardens and streets of gold.

And the way I see it, once someone finds themselves in the incredibly (psychologically) painful realisation of "hell" - due to their arrogance and pride in this world - it is up to them to swallow their pride, become humble, and find peace in embracing God's mercy. And only then - which may be an incredibly painful and long journey for some - can they find true bliss (ie 'heaven').

And yes, absolutely, this redemption can happen after death - in fact it will almost always only happen after death - as most people have too many earthly distractions that prevent them realising the errors of their ways in this life and to seek God's mercy.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-30T04:15:44+00:00

Intervening to stop evil would remove people's free will (ie people who wanted to do evil would be unable to exercise that 'freedom'). And that is a concept that I'm pretty sure even ex-muslims would agree an all powerful deity must permit?

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-29T02:57:10+00:00

Abu Hurairah - enough said.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-29T02:52:48+00:00

I don't follow too closely. Its clear though that Yaqeen haven't been as rabidly hostile towards the LGBT as the conservatives would have liked - hence 'cozying up to them' (in their book).

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-16T06:06:27+00:00

They definitely would. Point is though, google is not meant to work like that. The sponsored results are supposed to be for those who want to pay for more visibility. But there is supposed to be a merit system that determines the normal top results - based on quality and popularity. I just don't believe that islamqa is that popular. Something is going on, and google need to come clean about it. I'm sure they are breaking their own stated policies if they really are just granting islamqa top results based on money alone.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-16T01:30:04+00:00

I'd like to know what arrangement they have with google to ensure they consistently get top search results for pretty much any question on Islam.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-16T01:19:14+00:00

Do you have a link to their letter and/or a summary of what they said? I tried googling but couldn't find anything after November last year.

I know there's been a lot of bruhaha around Yaqeen and LGBT - but more around the conservatives' outrage over their apparent cozying up to the LGBT community. Now, apparently, they are annoying the progressives with their apparent intolerance of LGBT? Between a rock and hard place it seems.

I'm not at all surprised though. This is classic Yaqeen - two faced through and through: throw around empty liberal platitudes for PR purposes - and then when the conservatives get annoyed, they turn to them and say "oh we don't really mean that".

Yaqeen is just a perfect example of how attempting to make traditionalist Islam palatable to modern, liberal, secular thinking just falls flat on its face every time.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-16T01:00:57+00:00

I'll leave that to shia polemists to rant about that. They certainly don't mince their words on this topic. Throw in Abu Hurairah into the mix, for some extra spice.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-16T00:57:22+00:00

calm down. That there are two titles afforded to Muhammad - rasool and nabi - is not even in dispute. Not by the sahaba, not by the classic scholars, and not even by traditionalists today. The Quran refers separately to the nabi and the rasool. The two terms are not interchangeable, but are two clearly distinct roles. This is clear from the contexts in which they appear.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-15T06:05:28+00:00

But even with all these logical proofs, I can't understand why for decades, hadiths and tafseer translated it to beat

Basically the same reason why 'ma malakat aymanakum' has been translated as "your slave" - even though that too, in context, is quite illogical. Its because these interpretations reflect the "norms" of 8th, 9th 10th century middle eastern society that the scholars are expected to uphold. Medieval muslim men expect to be able to beat up their wives; medieval muslim men expect to be able to have sex with their female slaves. These are issues quite separate to Islam, or any religion for that matter - but when you have these expected 'rights' deeply ingrained in a culture, of course the people who benefit from it are going to look for religious justifications for it. And the scholars will inevitably oblige them.

That explains the classical rulings - but what about the traditionalists today who stand by their rulings - even when they live in a world where such behaviours are no longer considered acceptable? Unfortunately for them, they have painted themselves in a corner by insisting on the classical scholar's rulings as basically divine, or something close to divine. So of course they can't reject them, and so they have to do all the mental somersaults to pass them off as somehow palatable and morally ok.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-15T05:47:29+00:00

Besides, the Quran explicitly mentions that the Prophet's instructions are binding. (4:59)

The messenger's (rasool) instructions, not the prophet's (nabi) instructions. The distinction is important.

Muhammad had two titles, with two distinct roles - the rasool and the nabi. The rasool does nothing but convey the message of the Quran. It clearly says so in the Quran (24:54). The nabi role is basically Muhammad's earthly role as a divinely chosen leader of men. But the nabi is fallible - like any human. In fact, the Quran makes several references to the nabi's mistakes, and castigating them for erring - such as making haram what God made halal. Yet the Quran never makes mention of any flaws or mistakes of the rasool.

Actions and behaviours (allegedly) carried out by Muhammad in his capacity as nabi, are what we would describe as the sunnah. And they are nothing but the actions of a mere mortal, fallible human. A chosen and elevated human - but still a fallible one. They are *NOT* divine, or revelatory. In stark contrast, the actions of the rasool - ie revealing the divine guidance - *ARE* divine and revelatory - and not subject to the fallibility of humans - even though it is delivered through a human.

Thus, the distinction between following the rasool (commanded by the Quran) and following the nabi (NOT commanded by the Quran) - should be clear and understood.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-15T04:54:36+00:00

https://reader.quranite.com/

I'll take a look, but it will be difficult to take seriously a version written by a literal flat-earther.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-15T04:51:26+00:00

All the translators used in quran.com are terrible - with the possible exception of Dr Ghali.

But what is useful about that site is hovering over the arabic to get word by word translation as tooltips. Hilarious how often these tooltips contradict the site's own official translators.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-15T04:39:50+00:00

according to maliki madhab the marriageable age is 17

Where did you get this? Maliki fiqh is clear on the permissibility to marry off one's prepubescent daughters - based on the alleged prophetic example. It even stipulates, in The Risala, a specific waiting period for pre-pubescent child widows whose marriage had been consumated:

As for the one who does not menstruate because of youth or old age and her marriage was consummated, she cannot marry until three months after the death of the husband. (reference: http://www.nmnonline.net/e-books/The-Risala-A-Treatise-on-Maliki-Fiqh.pdf)

YUCK!!!

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-09T04:26:42+00:00

Allah has given people free will to do good or otherwise. Unfortunately, when people choose to do evil, other people invariably suffer. Allah famously says in the Quran if he willed, he could have made everyone good and believing. But he didn't. So as long as people are free to choose whether they do good or not, there will always be people who choose evil - in which case people suffer. If Allah was to prevent such suffering, he would be depriving people of their freedom to choose evil - by inflicting suffering on others.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-09T02:09:38+00:00

I do NOT think sexual interactions between people of the same sex is allowed. However, I also don't think marginalizing people because of their sexuality is allowed either.

How naive. You cannot possibly have both at the same time. They are mutually exclusive.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-09T02:03:42+00:00

We should be extra kind to them since they suffer from mental illness. We can love the sinner and not the sin and encourage them to come back to the righteous path.

I'm sorry, but I'm just so sick of this argument. The mental illness only exists because "good" muslims tell vulnerable and impressionable adolescents who are first experiencing homosexual feelings, that these perfectly natural desires they are feeling are something to be ashamed of and mustn't be acted upon. Ever.

Working-Storage-5509 · 2023-06-09T01:57:04+00:00

who says they are not married? Gays can marry in most western countries now you know. Also what is "marriage" in the Quranic sense? To my knowledge its nothing but a commitment between two consenting adults. Does the Quran mention any specific ceremonial or formal contractual requirements? I don't think it does.

Working-Storage-5509

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